


could your eyes believe the writing on the wall?

by papyrocrat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s03e11 Mystery Spot, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-28
Updated: 2012-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-17 13:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papyrocrat/pseuds/papyrocrat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>nothing that's isn't shown in or implied by the episode, but to err on the safe side, could press stalking and gaslighting buttons. Spoilers through mid-S5.</p>
    </blockquote>





	could your eyes believe the writing on the wall?

**Author's Note:**

> nothing that's isn't shown in or implied by the episode, but to err on the safe side, could press stalking and gaslighting buttons. Spoilers through mid-S5.

You just can’t resist bait with a name like “Dexter Hasselback.” Even _you_ couldn’t make this stuff up. (Okay, you _could_ , but why bother?) So you follow him to Florida, you do a little jerk-deflating, you leave a trail even those putzes don’t miss, and you make yourself at home.

You take it upon yourself to decentralize the air conditioning – sixty-five and sunny in February, it’s just unnatural, _you’re_ not the one who got yourself grounded in the universe’s funkiest locker-room sauna.

You make it a little colder, just a little, until it nips at your lungs enough to be real.

You think about breaking in Dean’s bed with the triplets (what? There could be triplets) but that kind of thing always sounds better than it is. You decide to drop them a little Fredrick’s of Hollywood and see if they’ll figure it out.

Probably not. This is going to be fun.

  
  


*

  
  


“This is my fault,” Dean says.

Sam flinches and sits up a little straighter. “What?”

Dean gives the bowl of granola and yogurt a long, mournful shake of his head. “I exposed you to Popeye at an impressionable age, and that was my mistake.”

Sam’s gloom lightens just a fraction, and the diner catches up with the bright southern morning. “That so.”

“Filled your head with all this pro-spinach propaganda, and now look at you. You’re a rabbit-food-eating giant. You’re a giant monster-killer rabbit. Heh. When we get out of here, let’s hit Atlanta.”

“Cute.”

“Come on. Little geek humor, I thought you’d like that. Huh?” Dean leans over the table, his eyelashes and smile writing out a giant question mark.

 _Look at him_ , you think over a deeply satisfying pull of vanilla rum milkshake. **_Answer_** _him_.

Sam’s eyes flip from side to side, searching for any and all hostile comers. Obviously you have no choice but to give Dean an aneurysm and watch him fall face-first into the yogurt.

It’s for his own good.

  
  


*

 

  
  


 

You had nothing to do with the flame that leaps out of the deep-fryer and onto Dean’s jacket (really), but still, you wince when Sam jumps.

You don’t think about your father as you snort and dig into your waffle. Your father wouldn’t laugh as Dean’s hair lights up like a Roman candle.

He wouldn’t laugh. He wouldn’t bother. You’re _nothing_ like Him.

  
  


*

 

 

 

 

Wednesday night, Sam rolls an ugly bundle of motel sheets down a ravine in the swamp. He drives away before it’s even come to rest, leaving gravity and you to do the dirty work.

You can’t blame him for that. Not when you’ve done the same.

  
  


*

 

 

 

  
  


You give up trying to leave him after the third week. Instead, you follow him around, glassy-eyed and vaguely amused, as if he’s the sullenest _Law & Order_ rerun marathon of all time (which, in a way, he is). You make your own fun: mugging for every security camera in Newport News; snapping candy wrappers by the gross into houses three states away; confiscating his razor when he’s too concussed to be shaving. He’s too busy coming after you to notice.

  
  


*

 

 

  
  


You didn’t look back when you ran. You didn’t look back, and you didn’t look down, not until your crash landing rattled loose a shank of ice. It bored into the earth, and you watched it melt away until all that was left of your fall was as bright and cold and grotesquely perfect as anything in creation, even Mr. Ooooh-I’m-The-Morning-Star-Bow-Before- _Me_. You had a sick flash of hate, so familiar and certain you knew you were home.

You feel it again one steamy July night as he stands over a burning pit of rawhead, staring coolly at the flame.

You should push him in, you know. But you’re the Trickster. You don’t do mercy.

  
  


*

 

  
  


 

You think for a moment that he’s onto you when a ghoul in most of a Donald Duck suit starts gurgling its own green blood.

He pulls out the blade and wipes it on his jeans, his mouth twisted into something that used to be a smile, and even you don’t get the joke.

You whip yourself up one folksy quasi-paternal Willie Nelson twang and turn yourself in.

  
  


*

 

  
  


 

Nobody gave you fair warning; nobody told you what it’d be like. He should be thanking you, but instead he begs, _please please please_.

(As if you expected any less.)

Nobody told you that you couldn’t save your brother. You had to figure that out for yourself.

One day you’ll believe it, but today you wrangle Dean out of the cosmos and back into his brittle human shape. Whatever else, you can’t watch the kid cry.

You just can’t.

 _You can’t save him either_ , you remind yourself.

Then you run.


End file.
